5 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE Raw (Feb 7)

5. A 6-Minute Loss

Damian Priest versus AJ Styles is a first-time match that should be a big deal, something built up, for a title, or at least announced in advance.

But instead, we got this match without any fanfare, billed as a “championship contender’s match” despite Styles being booked in a WWE Championship Elimination Chamber match in two weeks. Worse, Styles then toppled the United States Champion in about 6 minutes for only Priest’s second pinfall loss on the main roster.

But none of that means anything. Priest didn’t get any kind of rub from losing that short match. Sure, it was competitive and pretty good while it lasted, but your secondary champion, who went nearly a year without losing a match should be able to hang better with someone like AJ. Or at the very least, that loss should mean something.

But hey, the loss does apparently mean that we get a rematch for the US title next week. So we’ll see if it actually means something.